Leaving Money on the Table - The Persistence of Brain Waste among College-Educated Immigrants
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Leaving Money on the Table
The Persistence of Brain Waste among
College-Educated Immigrants
Jeanne Batalova
Michael Fix
U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY PROGRAM
Leaving Money on the Table
The Persistence of Brain Waste among
College-Educated Immigrants
Jeanne Batalova
Michael Fix
Migration Policy Institute
June 2021
Contents
Executive Summary........................................................................................................................................ 1
1 Introduction............................................................................................................................................... 3
2 Trends in the U.S. College-Educated Population and Workforce..................... 5
3 The Persisting Challenge of Brain Waste............................................................................. 6
A. The Extent of Brain Waste.......................................................................................................................................6
B. Key Factors Linked to Brain Waste.................................................................................................................... 8
4 State Trends in Immigrant Underemployment........................................................... 13
5 Concluding Thoughts...................................................................................................................... 15
Appendix: Additional Tables................................................................................................................ 18
About the Authors........................................................................................................................................ 22
Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................................... 23LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
Executive Summary
The election of President Joe Biden has opened a new chapter in immigration and immigrant integration
policies. The administration has, among other things, raised the ceiling on refugee resettlement, rescinded
the public-charge rule, re-established the White House Task Force on New Americans, proposed to extend
legal status to DREAMers, and proposed a marker bill—the U.S. Citizenship Act—that offers a more or less
comprehensive approach to immigration and integration policy.
Among the proposals embedded in the U.S. Citizenship Act is a call for a comprehensive study of factors
that limit the employment opportunities of internationally trained professionals. There are several reasons
for Congress and the executive branch to focus greater attention on underemployed immigrants with
college degrees. First, almost half of recent arrivals (i.e., immigrants who arrived in the past five years) have a
bachelor’s degree or higher, most often gained abroad. Second, 21 percent of college-educated immigrants,
or 2 million, are either unemployed or working in jobs that require no more than a high school diploma—an
outcome often referred to as “brain waste” or underemployment. Third, while most states have seen their
college-educated immigrant populations grow since 2010, there have been few strategic efforts to improve
the integration prospects of these new residents. Put differently, despite a strong influx of human capital,
the states and the nation overall are failing to fully
There are several reasons for Congress leverage the skills that millions of college-educated
immigrants have to offer. Finally, as documented
and the executive branch to focus
here, stark patterns of racial and ethnic disadvantage
greater attention on underemployed emerge in the underemployment of both highly
immigrants with college degrees. skilled immigrants and the U.S. born.
This report analyzes state and national trends and factors linked to brain waste among four-year college
graduates, both immigrant and U.S. born. The analyses are based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 and 2019
American Community Survey (ACS), the Labor Department’s O*NET data on job skill levels by occupation,
and the pooled 2014–18 ACS with MPI’s assignment of legal status among noncitizens.
Key findings include:
► Among college graduates, underemployment rates are higher for immigrants than the
U.S. born. In 2019, following a ten-year rise in the educational attainment of recent immigrants,
underemployment among internationally trained immigrants remained high, and substantially
exceeded that found among U.S.-born college graduates (21 percent versus 16 percent, respectively).
► Nearly all states saw rapid growth in their college-educated immigrant populations between
2010 and 2019. However, the underemployment of highly skilled immigrants exceeded that of U.S.-
born graduates in 40 states, with strikingly wide gaps in some of those states with the fastest-growing
economies, such as Utah and Nevada. By contrast, a set of Rust Belt and midwestern states, including
Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, had relatively low underemployment rates among immigrants, and
the gaps between the underemployment rates of immigrant and U.S.-born college graduates were
narrow to nonexistent.
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 1LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
► Underemployment is concentrated among racial and ethnic minorities across both foreign- and
U.S.-born college graduates. During periods of growth and recession, underemployment serves
as a valuable lens for examining racial disparities and economic inequality. Regardless of place of
birth, college-educated Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be underemployed than their White
counterparts, even when other sociodemographic and educational characteristics are taken into
account in regression analyses: The odds of underemployment for Black immigrants are 54 percent
higher compared to their White counterparts; for Latinos they are 40 percent higher.
The regression results also reveal that highly skilled Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs)
were 12 percent less likely than White immigrants to face underemployment. However, because AAPIs
account for almost half of the 9.6 million college-educated immigrants, numerically speaking they also
make up larger shares of the 2 million underemployed immigrants (37 percent or 738,000).
► In addition to race and ethnicity, place of education, English proficiency, and legal status
are strong predictors of brain waste. Immigrants who received their education abroad are more
likely to be underemployed (24 percent) than those educated in the United States (17 percent). In
contrast, U.S.-educated immigrants were only slightly more likely to be underemployed than their
U.S.-born counterparts (17 percent versus 16 percent). Approximately 55 percent of college-educated
immigrants with very low English proficiency were underemployed in 2019, compared to 33 percent
of those who reported speaking English “well” in the ACS.
► College-educated immigrants on temporary visas were the least likely to be in low-skilled
employment or unemployed (8 percent). Unauthorized immigrants and those admitted on
humanitarian grounds were far more likely to experience brain waste (34 percent and 44 percent,
respectively).
► Immigrants with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and health
are less likely to be underemployed than those in other fields. These lower underemployment
levels held for both foreign- and U.S.-educated immigrant professionals. For example, less than 17
percent of internationally trained immigrants with STEM and health-related bachelor’s degrees were
underemployed in 2019, compared to 35 percent or more of those with degrees in law, education, or
business.
► Nonetheless, brain waste levels for immigrants with both health-related degrees and degrees
in architecture or engineering were almost twice as high as for their U.S.-born counterparts.
Many of these underemployed immigrants with college degrees in health or medicine have been
overlooked by efforts to overcome health-worker shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Taken together, these findings suggest several targets of opportunity for policymakers, service providers,
educational institutions, and immigrant advocacy organizations to work toward reducing brain waste.
One target for such efforts is highly skilled, underemployed immigrants who speak English “well” but who
are not fluent. Many may require only modest, relatively inexpensive “topping-off” instruction to become
fully integrated in the labor force. Another potentially promising strategy is to design or strengthen
initiatives focused on highly regulated occupations (e.g., education ), where immigrant professionals
experience particularly high levels of underemployment. A third policy focus given the authors’ findings
of disadvantage among native- and foreign-born Blacks and Latinos would be antidiscrimination
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 2LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
policies that can influence the actions of both employers and licensing bodies. A final area of focus—and
arguably the most urgent given the nation’s public-health crisis—would be to develop pathways for
underemployed immigrant and U.S.-born health-care professionals to join the U.S. health-care workforce.
The recently passed $1.9 trillion stimulus legislation, the American Rescue Plan of 2021, offers unique
funding opportunities to expand access to health-care services and boost the public-health workforce.
Underemployed immigrants and refugees with health-related degrees and training, who bring critical
cultural and linguistic skills, represent a significant, largely untapped, pool of workers.
Several recent federal policy developments may present opportunities for reducing skill underutilization.
These include an expanded and better supported refugee resettlement program and the re-establishment
of a White House Task Force on New Americans that could make brain waste a focus of its integration
portfolio. Both state and federal governments have much to learn from the natural experiments that have
taken place within the health-care system in 2020 as several states sought to bring internationally trained
health-care professionals off the sidelines and into the fight against COVID-19 by adjusting licensing
requirements. Although the results of these efforts were mixed, they hold important lessons for developing
successful credential-recognition policies in the future.
1 Introduction
A foreign-trained brain surgeon taking a job as an Uber driver to make ends meet is but one example of
the “brain waste” often seen among high-skilled immigrants in the United States. The underutilization of
immigrant—and indeed U.S.-born—professionals’ skills is a phenomenon that comes at a substantial cost to
individual workers, their families, and the broader society. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has estimated
that the forgone wages of underemployed college-educated immigrants in the country amounted to almost
$40 billion annually, and that federal, state, and local governments combined were losing $10 billion in
taxes as a result of these forgone earnings.1 Analysts have also found that beyond earnings losses, brain
waste has other negative long-term effects as underemployed workers have fewer opportunities to acquire
on-the-job skills and to build professional connections that could lead to future jobs.2
The COVID-19 pandemic brought other dimensions of highly skilled immigrants’ underemployment into
focus. With the crisis’s onset and the sustained shortages of health-care workers, several states sought to
incorporate underutilized internationally trained health-care professionals in their pandemic response by
altering longstanding licensing and credentialing barriers.
Proponents hoped that the policy changes would allow
this reserve corps of practitioners to assist beleaguered Looking beyond the pandemic
health-care professionals throughout the health system. and its economic impacts, several
While these measures’ results were mixed, they brought
broad sociodemographic trends
to the fore the issue of skill underutilization among
immigrant professionals in a vivid way largely new to underscore the importance of
many policymakers. mitigating this brain waste.
Looking beyond the pandemic and its economic impacts, several broad sociodemographic trends
underscore the importance of mitigating this brain waste. One is the aging of the U.S. population along with
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 3LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
the retirement of its large baby boomer population that will result in new demands for labor. Another is the
U.S. population’s slow rate of growth over the past decade: the second slowest in the nation’s history.3 One
result of these demographic trends is that a disproportionate share of this demand for workers across skill
levels will need to be met by immigrant-origin populations, including those trained abroad. Another related
macro trend is the gulf between the skills of the nation’s workforce and the demands of its economy. Before
the pandemic’s onset, this gap was broader than it had been in decades, a gulf that has only widened with
the onset of the recovery: The number of unfilled jobs reported by the U.S. Department of Labor’s survey on
job openings rose from 7.1 million in January 2020 to 8.1 million as of the end of March 2021.4
In this report, the authors use data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 and 2019 American Community
Surveys (ACSs), employing MPI-developed methodologies for assigning job skills to occupations5 (see Box 1)
and legal status to noncitizens.6 The report addresses the following questions:
1 How did the educational attainment of U.S. immigrants change between 2010 and 2019, both
nationwide and at the state level?
2 How did underemployment change among foreign- and U.S.-born college graduates from 2010
through 2019? What factors (e.g., U.S. versus foreign degrees, English proficiency, legal status, and
gender) are associated with brain waste?
3 How do patterns of immigrant underemployment compare to those among U.S.-born populations,
especially among racial and ethnic groups that have been historically disadvantaged?
4 How does the underemployment of highly skilled immigrants vary across states?
5 What are the implications of these education and employment trends for immigrant integration policies?
BOX 1
Brain Waste and Other Key Terms
“Brain waste” (also referred to as “underemployment” or “skill underutilization”) is defined here as the employment of
college-educated adults in low-skilled jobs or as their unemployment (i.e., when they are jobless and looking for a job).
“College-educated adults” refers to civilian, noninstitutionalized persons ages 25 and older with at least a four-year
education (i.e., a bachelor’s, master’s, professional, or doctoral degree). This term is used interchangeably in this report
with “college graduates,” “highly educated,” and “highly skilled.” “Workers” are adults ages 25 and older in the civilian
labor force. “Recently arrived” immigrants are those who entered the United States within the five-year period before the
survey.
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) methodology for classifying job skills draws on the U.S. Department of Labor’s online
database of occupational profiles, O*NET. The database classifies occupations by educational requirements, segmenting
them into “job zones.” Based on this categorization, MPI assigns jobs to three skill levels:
► High-skilled jobs require at least a bachelor’s degree. Examples include physicians and scientists (job zones 4 and 5).
► Middle-skilled jobs require some postsecondary education or training (i.e., an associate’s degree or long-term on-
the-job training or vocational training). Examples include registered nurses, electricians, and teachers’ assistants
(job zone 3).
► Low-skilled jobs require a high school degree or less, and little to moderate on-the-job training. Workers in these
jobs include home health aides, construction laborers, and taxi drivers (job zones 1 and 2).
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 4LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
2 Trends in the U.S. College-Educated Population
and Workforce
The persisting underemployment FIGURE 1
among highly skilled immigrant Share of Immigrant and U.S.-Born Adults with a Bachelor’s Degree
professionals documented here or Higher, by Nativity and Recency of Arrival, 1990 and 2019
has taken place against the 48%
backdrop of a steady rise in the
educational credentials of new 33% 33%
27%
immigrant flows to the United
20% 20%
States. The number of highly
skilled immigrant adults (ages 25
and older) grew 42 percent from
9 million in 2010 to 12.8 million U.S. Born All Immigrants Recently Arrived
in 2019. This rate of increase was Immigrants
much higher than that of U.S.-born 1990 2019
college graduates, which rose 27
Note: Recently arrived immigrants are those who entered the United States within the
percent from 48.1 million to 61 five-year period before the survey.
million during the same period. Source: Migration Policy Institute (MPI) tabulation of data from the U.S. Census
Bureau’s 1990 decennial census and 2019 American Community Survey (ACS).
As of 2019, immigrants accounted
for 17 percent of the nation’s 55.1
TABLE 1
million college-educated workers
Top Ten Sending Countries of Recently Arrived College-Educated
and an even larger share of college
Immigrants to the United States, 2019
graduates who had joined the U.S.
Number Percent
labor force since 2010 (25 percent).
As of 2019, almost half of recently Recently arrived immigrants 2,323,000 100.0%
arrived immigrants had a four-year India 537,000 23.1%
college degree. This rate is almost China/Hong Kong 225,000 9.7%
double that seen in the second half
Mexico 108,000 4.7%
of the 1980s (27 percent).
Philippines 96,000 4.2%
Immigrants from India accounted Venezuela 96,000 4.1%
for 23 percent of the 2.3 million Brazil 73,000 3.2%
recently arrived college graduates South Korea 64,000 2.7%
in 2019, up from 8 percent in 1990.
Cuba 57,000 2.5%
Other countries that sent large
numbers of college graduates Canada 55,000 2.4%
were China (including Hong Kong), Nigeria 54,000 2.3%
Mexico, the Philippines, and Note: Figure includes all recently arrived immigrant adults, not only those in the labor
force.
Venezuela (see Table 1). Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 ACS.
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 5LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
The share of immigrants with college degrees has risen across all legal status categories. Thirty-two percent
of recently arrived lawful permanent residents (LPRs, also known as green-card holders) were college
graduates, versus 20 percent of all green-card holders, according to the analysis of the pooled 2014-18
ACS with MPI’s legal status assignments.7 Thirty-one percent of recently arrived humanitarian migrants8
held a college degree versus 24 percent of all humanitarian immigrants. And even among unauthorized
immigrants—often thought of as being less educated—34 percent of recent entrants were college
graduates versus 19 percent of the total unauthorized population.
Among all immigrants with a college education, the majority were either naturalized U.S. citizens (57
percent) or green-card holders (17 percent). About 14 percent of college-educated immigrants were
unauthorized immigrants, including the young adults who are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) program. Immigrants on temporary work visas, such as H-1B or TN visas for high-skilled
workers, accounted for 10 percent of immigrant college graduates. A much smaller share (2 percent) were
humanitarian migrants.
3 The Persisting Challenge of Brain Waste
Labor force and skill employment outcomes of college-educated adults vary by their place of education,
gender, and nativity (see Table 2). Roughly equal shares (about one-quarter each) of both natives and
immigrants with a college degree or more were not in the labor force (i.e., they were not employed and not
looking for a job). Regardless of nativity, women were more likely to be out of the labor force: the share was
largest among foreign-educated women (39 percent), followed by U.S.-born women (28 percent), and then
by U.S.-educated immigrant women (23 percent). U.S. and international research has found that the lower
rates of labor force participation among immigrant women, including higher-educated women, has to do
in large part with cultural approaches to family and child-care responsibilities as well as the availability of
child-care services and their costs.9 Among men, immigrants who were U.S.-educated were the least likely
to be out of the labor force. Only 14 percent reported being out of the labor market, versus 21 percent of
foreign-educated immigrants and 23 percent of the U.S. born.
A. The Extent of Brain Waste
Despite a growing economy and rising education levels among foreign workers from 2010 to 2019, brain
waste among highly educated immigrants persisted. In 2010, an estimated 1.74 million college-educated
immigrants were either unemployed or worked in low-skilled jobs such as retail salespersons, customer
service representatives, or personal care aides. Almost a decade later, the number of underemployed
college-educated immigrants remained largely unchanged at about 2 million (see Table 2). As in earlier
years, foreign-born college graduates in 2019 were more likely to be underemployed than U.S.-born
graduates: 21 percent versus 16 percent (Figure 2).
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 6LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
TABLE 2
Employment Status of Civilian College-Educated Adults (ages 25 and older), by Nativity, Place of Education,
and Gender, 2019
Immigrants U.S. Born Internationally U.S.-Educated U.S.-Born College
Educated Immigrants Immigrants Educated
Men Women Men Women Men Women
Total civilian
12,805,300 61,034,500 3,515,300 3,635,900 2,705,400 2,948,600 28,459,700 32,574,800
population
Percent of the total
population
Out of labor force 24.7% 25.5% 20.5% 38.6% 13.8% 22.7% 22.9% 27.8%
In the civilian labor
9,639,400 45,465,800 2,793,100 2,232,900 2,333,200 2,280,200 21,940,400 23,525,300
force
Percent of the labor force
Employed 97.7% 98.0% 97.9% 97.0% 98.0% 97.8% 97.9% 98.1%
High skilled 63.3% 68.1% 66.7% 52.9% 70.2% 62.4% 71.1% 65.2%
Middle skilled 16.0% 16.1% 11.7% 20.9% 12.4% 20.1% 12.8% 19.2%
Low skilled 18.3% 13.8% 19.4% 23.2% 15.3% 15.3% 13.9% 13.7%
Unemployed 2.3% 2.0% 2.1% 3.0% 2.0% 2.2% 2.1% 1.9%
Brain waste
(underutilized)
Estimate 1,991,700 7,186,300 602,400 585,800 404,300 399,200 3,521,100 3,665,200
Percent of the labor
20.7% 15.8% 21.6% 26.2% 17.3% 17.5% 16.0% 15.6%
force
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 ACS.
This study, like prior MPI research, defines “brain waste” to be the unemployment or low-skill employment
of those with at least a four-year college degree.10 By defining underemployment in this way, the authors
exclude workers with four-year college degrees who are employed in middle-skilled jobs for which they
are also overqualified. Table 2 shows that an additional 16 percent (or 1.5 million) of immigrants in the
civilian labor force with a bachelor’s degree or higher were employed in middle-skilled jobs, such as
registered nurses, administrative assistants, and computer support. If these arguably overqualified workers
were included in this report’s estimates they would increase the number of underemployed, highly skilled
immigrants from 2 million to 3.5 million.
FIGURE 2
Share of College-Educated Workers, by Nativity and Job Skill Type, 2019
U.S. Born 68% 16% 16%
Immigrants 63% 16% 21%
In high-skilled jobs In middle-skilled jobs In low-skilled jobs or unemployed
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 ACS.
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 7LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
B. Key Factors Linked to Brain Waste
Several factors drive underemployment,11 with many holding for both immigrant and U.S.-born college
graduates. Here, the authors use both descriptive analysis and logistic regression models12 to quantify the
relationship between underemployment and workers’ characteristics. Other factors13 that have been linked
to brain waste, but that do not lend themselves to ACS data analyses, are discussed in Box 2.
Race and Ethnicity
Latino and Black immigrant college graduates were more likely to be underemployed in 2019—32 percent
and 26 percent, respectively—than Whites and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) (18 percent
and 16 percent, respectively) (see Figure 3). Among U.S.-born college graduates, Blacks were the most likely
to be underemployed (22 percent), followed by Latinos (19 percent).
One approach to measuring FIGURE 3
economic integration and Share of Underemployed College-Educated Workers, by Nativity and
inequality is to compare the Race/Ethnicity, 2019
shares of college graduates 32%
who work in high-skilled
jobs with those who are 26%
underemployed. Here, the 22%
19%
data reveal that U.S.-born 18%
16%
Black college graduates are 15% 15%
over-represented among
the underemployed relative
to their share among U.S.
workers in high-skilled
jobs (see Figure 4) (see
Appendix, Table A-1). As Immigrants U.S. Born
Figure 4 indicates, Blacks White Asian American & Pacific Islander Black Latino
composed 13 percent of
Note: Latinos can be of any race. The other racial groups refer to non-Latinos. Black refers to
U.S.-born underemployed non-Latino persons who reported their race as “Black alone” or “Black in combination with other
race.” Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) refers to non-Latino persons who reported
workers, but they made up their race as “AAPI alone” or “AAPI in combination with other race” except Black. American
only 8 percent of U.S.-born Indian/other races (not shown in the chart above) include non-Latino people who reported
their race as “American Indian alone,” “American Indian and White,” or unspecified multiracial.
workers in high-skilled jobs. The remainder group (White) refers to non-Latino persons who reported their race as “White.”
Similarly, Black immigrants Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 ACS.
accounted for 12 percent of
underemployed immigrant college graduates but only 8 percent of immigrants in high-skilled jobs in 2019.
This disheartening pattern can also be seen among college-educated Latino immigrants: they represented
30 percent of underemployed immigrants versus 15 percent of immigrants in high-skilled jobs. Because the
absolute number of AAPI college-educated immigrants is so high, they make up large shares of immigrants
who are underemployed (37 percent or 738,000) as well as those employed in high-skilled jobs (50 percent).
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 8LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
FIGURE 4
Shares of Immigrant and U.S.-Born College Graduates among Underemployed Workers and among
Workers in High-Skilled Jobs, by Race/Ethnicity, 2019
Latino Black AAPI White Other
Underemployed 8% 13% 4% 74% 1%
U.S. Born
In high-skilled jobs 6% 8% 4% 81% 1%
Immigrants
Underemployed 30% 12% 37% 20% 1%
In high-skilled jobs 15% 8% 50% 26% 1%
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 ACS.
Regression analyses reveal that race remains one of the most salient factors in shaping outcomes for both
immigrant and U.S.-born college graduates even after other factors, such as gender, educational attainment
level, English proficiency, and state of residence, are considered. Among highly skilled immigrant adults,
the odds of underemployment for Blacks are 54 percent higher compared to their White counterparts,
and for Latinos they are 40 percent higher. AAPI immigrants, meanwhile, are 12 percent less likely than
White immigrants to face underemployment. For Latino immigrant college graduates, limited English skills
explain about half of this disadvantage, whereas the impact of English proficiency is less pronounced for
Blacks. Among the U.S. born, the odds of underemployment among Black and Latino college graduates
are also higher than among their White peers (by 56 percent and 30 percent, respectively), while there is
no meaningful difference between
AAPIs and Whites. Taken together,
the results of both descriptive
Regression analyses reveal that race remains
and regression analyses point to a one of the most salient factors in shaping
persistent labor market disadvantage outcomes for both immigrant and U.S.-born
experienced by Black and Latino college graduates even after other factors, such
college-educated workers, native
born and immigrant alike.14
as gender, educational attainment level, English
proficiency, and state of residence, are considered.
Gender
College-educated women were much more likely to be out of the workforce than men (see Table 2), which
is consistent with other studies of gender differences in the labor market. Table 2 also shows that immigrant
women with foreign degrees were more likely to be underemployed than other groups, while there was
almost no gender difference in the risk of brain waste among U.S.-educated immigrants and the U.S.
born. However, once other factors, in particular the presence of young children, are taken into account in
regression analyses, female college graduates were in fact somewhat less likely to be underemployed than
college-educated men, regardless of nativity.
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 9LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
Immigrant Workers’ English-Language Proficiency
Other personal characteristics, such as English-language proficiency, also play a role in shaping workers’
labor market outcomes. There is a strong inverse relationship between English proficiency and brain
waste: About 55 percent of those who reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” and 33 percent of
those who reported speaking English “well”15 were underemployed in 2019. In contrast, only 15 percent of
English-only speakers and 16 percent of immigrants who speak another language and are English proficient
were underemployed. One-quarter of underutilized immigrants (or 490,000) speak English “well” and may
be positioned to be fully employed with modest levels of occupation-specific language training. (See
Appendix, Table A-2, for the number and share of immigrants by level of English proficiency and job skills.)
The regression analyses affirm that the strongest
single predictor of underemployment among college- The strongest single predictor of
educated immigrants is their level of English-language underemployment among college-
proficiency. Immigrant college graduates with very
limited English skills are almost five times more
educated immigrants is their level of
likely to be underemployed than those who are fully English-language proficiency.
proficient.
Education
Immigrants’ level of education along with what and where they studied are also determinants of
underemployment. Among immigrants with only a bachelor’s degree, 29 percent were either working in
low-skilled jobs or unemployed in 2019—more than twice the level of advanced-degree holders. Thus,
for many highly skilled immigrants in the U.S. labor force, as for many U.S.-born graduates, the return on
investment in a bachelor’s degree can be relatively low. In contrast, 77 percent of immigrants with a master’s
degree, 80 percent of those with a professional degree, and 91 percent of those with a doctoral degree were
employed in high-skilled jobs, versus only 50 percent of immigrants with a bachelor’s degree. Immigrant
graduates’ underemployment rates exceed those of the U.S. born at every degree level. Regression analyses
confirm the importance of advanced degrees for both immigrant and U.S.-born college graduates.
U.S. and international research shows that education and experience obtained by immigrants in their
origin country are less valued and often not formally recognized by the destination country’s labor
market.16 These perceptions can owe, among other things, to employers’ inability to assess whether foreign
credentials come with the same knowledge requirements as those earned in the United States, to racial
and ethnic bias, and to employers’ concerns about the stability of an applicant’s employment due to lack of
citizenship (see also Box 2). MPI researchers find that immigrants who received their education in another
country are more likely to be underemployed than those educated in the United States (24 percent versus
17 percent, respectively, in 2019). This gap persists even when English skills and other characteristics are
taken into account. Notably, immigrants educated in the United States are only slightly more likely to be
underemployed than their U.S.-born counterparts (17 percent versus 16 percent), demonstrating the value
of domestic training in the eyes of U.S. employers.
Immigrants in certain professional fields are more likely to face underemployment. Some of the highest
levels of immigrant underemployment are in occupations that require formal credential recognition and
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 10LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
licensing, such as law and education (see Figure 5). Other Immigrants who received
fields with high underemployment levels are business and
their education in another
journalism, both of which rely on strong English-language
and general communications skills. In contrast, immigrants country are more likely to be
with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and underemployed than those
health degrees are less likely to be underemployed. educated in the United States.
Despite low overall levels of underemployment relative to immigrants with other degrees, internationally
trained immigrants with degrees in health, architecture, and engineering are significantly more likely than
their U.S.-born counterparts to be underemployed. To illustrate, while only 9 percent of U.S.-born health
graduates are underemployed, 15 percent of internationally trained immigrants with a health or medical
degree are underemployed. Indeed, recent MPI research has found that close to 270,000 immigrant college
graduates with medicine- or health-related degrees were underemployed or out of the labor force as of
2019.17 Similar patterns can be seen in architecture and engineering. In the area of health, this brain waste
among immigrants has come at the expense of an overwhelmed U.S. health system that has struggled to
cope with COVID-19.18
FIGURE 5
Underemployed Share of College-Educated Immigrant and U.S.-Born Adults, by Place of Education and
Bachelor’s Degree Major, 2019*
Internationally Educated Immigrants U.S.-Educated Immigrants U.S. Born
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20% STEM and Health Majors
15%
10%
5%
0%
Note: The ACS does not provide information on fields of study or majors at educational levels higher than the undergraduate level.
“Major” refers to the main major.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 ACS.
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 11LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
Legal Status
Unauthorized immigrants with a college education are more likely to be underemployed than most
immigrants with other forms of legal status, an outcome that can be tied in part to legal status restrictions
on obtaining professional licenses or credentials (see Figure 6). Immigrants entering through humanitarian
channels also experience high levels of underemployment: almost half were underemployed in 2018. This
may be attributed in part to the refugee resettlement program’s strong focus on getting people into the
labor force as quickly as possible, irrespective of the fit between their education and the jobs at hand.19
FIGURE 6
Underemployed Share of College-Educated Immigrant Adults, by U.S. Citizenship and Legal Status,
2014–18
Humanitarian immigrants 44%
Unauthorized immigrants 34%
Green-card holders 27%
Naturalized U.S. citizens 20%
Temporary visa holders 8%
Source: MPI tabulation of U.S. Census Bureau data from the 2014–18 American Community Survey (ACS) pooled and the 2008 Survey of
Income and Program Participation (SIPP), drawing on an MPI methodology developed in consultation with James Bachmeier of Temple
University and Jennifer Van Hook of the Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
BOX 2
Other Factors Contributing to Brain Waste among College-Educated Immigrants
Beyond the factors captured in the American Community Survey data and regression analyses, an extensive
body of knowledge has been accumulated by, among others, nonprofit organizations such as Upwardly
Global and the Welcome Back Centers that work with immigrant professionals. Their service work and
analyses identify important, systemic barriers to gainful employment for immigrants and refugees.
One such barrier is recent immigrants’ limited social and professional networks. Another is employer bias
and discrimination against foreign-born or foreign-educated candidates. Some employers may be reluctant
to hire candidates with unfamiliar credentials, little U.S. work experience, or work authorizations that may
not be renewed.
Another barrier to good jobs for immigrant college graduates is their often-interrupted career trajectories.
Returning to gainful employment after a period of un- or underemployment due to raising children, living in
refugee camps, or being unauthorized is particularly challenging. In addition to outdated skills, immigrants
whose careers have been disrupted are likely to face increased difficulties related to lack of English-
language proficiency, as work often constitutes an important mechanism for obtaining proficiency and
developing the ability to communicate in a business setting in English.
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 12LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
BOX 2 (cont.)
Other Factors Contributing to Brain Waste among College-Educated Immigrants
Difficulties in filling skills gaps represent another set of obstacles. The relative lack of “bridge” programs to fill
gaps in coursework or practical training, as well as advanced English courses teaching professional language
and communications skills can prevent immigrant professionals with years of experience from fully applying
their skills. Because much of the U.S. workforce development system is designed to “upskill” and support
people with few skills, highly educated workers—both immigrant and native—are largely on their own
when it comes to navigating the labor market.
Finally, there are barriers that limit opportunities for gainful employment for college-educated immigrant
and U.S.-born workers alike, such as licensing and regulatory challenges. As the number of occupations that
require licenses or certifications has increased—from 5 percent in 1950 to more than 25 percent in 2015—
the process of obtaining licenses has become more complex and difficult to navigate. A lack of transparency
regarding licensing requirements and career pathways, which vary across states and occupations, increases
these challenges. In addition, refugees and other humanitarian migrants who fled their home countries may
lack documents that prove their foreign-earned credentials and work experience and that are required to
obtain a professional license in the United States.
Sources: Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix, Tapping the Talents of Highly Skilled Immigrants in the United States: Takeaways from Experts
Summit (Washington, DC: MPI, 2018); Margie McHugh and Madeleine Morawski, Unlocking Skills: Successful Initiatives for Integrating
Foreign-Trained Immigrant Professionals (Washington, DC: MPI, 2017); National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Occupational
Licensing Final Report: Assessing State Policies and Practices (Washington, DC: NCSL, 2020); Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), International Migration Outlook 2020 (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2020).
4 State Trends in Immigrant Underemployment
Skilled and educated workers help propel both national and local economies. Between 2010 and 2019, the
U.S. college-educated immigrant population grew by 42 percent. During the same period, the number of
immigrant college graduates grew faster than the national average in 25 states20 (see Figure 7). Notably,
five of the ten states with the fastest rates of growth among high-skilled immigrants also led the nation
in 2016–19 GDP growth, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.21 They included Washington
State (ranked 1st in GDP growth), Texas (10th), Utah (2nd), Idaho (3rd), and Colorado (4th). These patterns
suggest that immigrants are both attracted to places with strong economies and that their skills and
entrepreneurship contribute to that growth.
But even as the population of college-educated immigrants grew faster than U.S.-born graduates, in most
states underemployment among high-skilled immigrant workers exceeded that of the U.S. born (see Figure
8), making brain waste an abiding state as well as national issue. This underemployment also indicates that
many states are not reaping the full economic benefits of their highly skilled immigrant populations.
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 13LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
FIGURE 7
Percent Change in Populations of College-Educated Immigrants and U.S.-Born Adults, by State, between 2010 and
2019
90%
Immigrants U.S. Born
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
MD
CA
MS
TN
CO
MO
CT
ME
MA
MN
DC
U.S.
WA
TX
RI
DE
WI
MI
LA
HI
KS
KY
AZ
AR
FL
AL
VA
NM
PA
IL
NH
NY
NJ
NE
NC
ID
IA
NV
IN
OH
GA
OR
SC
UT
OK
Note: Seven states—Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming—are not shown here due to a small sample size.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 and 2019 ACS.
Several Rust Belt and midwestern states have low underemployment rates among immigrants and the gaps
between the underemployment rates of immigrant and U.S.-born college graduates are narrow. Michigan,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania are notable in this respect (Figure 8). Two of the three, Michigan and Ohio, have
implemented programs to attract and fully employ high-skilled immigrants.22
Not surprisingly, six traditional immigrant-receiving states accounted for most underutilized immigrants
in 2019. California and Florida were home to 32 percent of the 2 million college-educated immigrants who
were either in low-skilled work or were unemployed. New York, Texas, New Jersey, and Illinois accounted
for another 29 percent. Among these six states, Florida stands out as having one of the highest immigrant
underemployment rates in the nation (27 percent).
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 14LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
FIGURE 8
Underemployed Share of College-Educated Workers, by Nativity and State, 2019
50%
Immigrants U.S. Born
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
MA
MO
TN
ME
MD
MN
CO
TX
U.S.
WA
CA
MS
RI
CT
DE
DC
MI
KY
HI
WI
LA
AR
AZ
KS
AL
FL
VA
NM
NH
PA
ID
IN
NV
NE
IA
NC
IL
NY
NJ
SC
GA
OH
OK
UT
OR
Note: Seven states—Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming—are not shown here due to a small sample size.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 ACS.
5 Concluding Thoughts
The decade between 2010 and 2019 was one of strong economic growth and declining unemployment,
during which the United States saw increasingly educated immigration flows. But despite these favorable
economic conditions, brain waste persisted at high levels, with 2 million college-educated immigrants in
low-skilled jobs or unemployed in 2019. Patterns of underemployment were evident among both foreign-
and U.S.-born workers with Latino and Black college graduates suffering higher levels of underemployment
than other racial and ethnic groups.23
These trends in highly skilled immigration and underemployment can be seen across the nation. All
but six states (with available data) saw their college-educated immigrant populations grow faster than
their highly skilled U.S.-born populations. And in all but three states, immigrant college graduates had
higher underemployment rates than their U.S.-born peers, indicating how widespread the brain waste
phenomenon is. These rates of underutilization translate into lower earnings, and in turn, to lower tax
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 15LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
collections at all levels of government.24 Many states, then, have been “leaving money on the table” by not
fully capitalizing on the skills of their highly educated immigrant workers.
Maximizing the opportunities for highly trained
immigrants and refugees represents one powerful
Maximizing the opportunities for
tool for increasing the pool of skilled and talented
professionals needed in the post-pandemic economy.
highly trained immigrants and
A diverse set of institutions could support efforts to refugees represents one powerful
reduce immigrant underemployment: community tool for increasing the pool of skilled
colleges, workforce development boards, adult
and talented professionals needed
education programs, immigrant advocacy and rights
organizations, and refugee resettlement organizations.
in the post-pandemic economy.
Several potential targets for policy and practice interventions flow from the empirical analyses set out in
this report. One would be the 25 percent of highly skilled, underemployed immigrants (or close to 490,000)
who report that they speak English “well” but not “very well,” given the strong inverse relationship between
English proficiency and underemployment. The increased funding for immigrant integration proposed
by the Biden administration could support programs to help these immigrant professionals “top up” their
language skills: skills that would act as a bridge toward securing more skilled employment.
Another policy focus supported by the data reported here would be highly regulated occupations, such as
education, in which immigrant professionals experience particularly high levels of underemployment. Given
teacher shortages resulting in part from pandemic-associated retirements across the nation, alternative
teacher certification or bridge programs could help many of these bilingual and bicultural teachers re-enter
the classroom, to the benefit of students and broader communities as well as the immigrant professionals
themselves.25
This research finds that underemployment affects a significant number of traditionally disadvantaged racial
minority groups: 42 percent of immigrant and 21 percent of native underemployed college graduates
are Blacks or Latinos. Even when controlling for other factors related to underemployment, college
graduates who are Black or Latino are significantly more likely to experience brain waste than their White
or AAPI counterparts. This finding suggests that labor market discrimination based on race and ethnicity
persisted even in a tight labor market. At the same time, skills, such as cultural sensitivities and linguistic
competencies, have not been put to good use where they are needed.26
The data also support policies aimed at the health-care field, where underemployment among immigrant
graduates with health-care degrees is twice that of their U.S.-born counterparts. (Recent MPI research
has found that close to 270,000 immigrants with medicine or health-related four-year degrees were
underemployed or out of labor force as of 2019.)27 This underutilization has occurred against the backdrop
of pandemic-driven shortages of professionals across the health-care system. Demand for health-care
professionals is likely to be further boosted by the Biden administration’s call for a surge in new workers
to support vaccination and other efforts to combat COVID-19 under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,
signed into law in mid-March.28 The administration’s pandemic response strategy also calls for expanding
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 16LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
the scope of practice laws and waiving licensing requirements where appropriate—shifts that stand to
benefit internationally trained health professionals.29
The data in this report also highlight the fact that the underemployment of college-educated immigrants
is not just concentrated in a handful of states but is a challenge across the country. Among the recent
policy experiments of most interest when it comes to brain waste are the efforts of eight states, including
New Jersey, Colorado, and Idaho, to adjust licensing and practice requirements for internationally trained
health-care professionals during the pandemic.30 The success of those experiments so far has been modest.
But their implementation provides important lessons for the broader policy issue of recognizing foreign
credentials and overcoming the underemployment of college graduates going forward.31 These lessons lie in
such areas as the cost and availability of malpractice insurance and the unintended exclusions arising from
rigidities in emergency rules that bear on the length and recency of U.S. medical practice. The successes
and limits of those emergency orders need to be more deeply understood and broadly communicated
to the immigrant integration field. They also need to be placed in the broader context of licensing and
occupational regulation reforms that are underway as brain waste is an abiding issue for many college-
educated U.S.-born workers.32
While credential recognition and underutilization have traditionally been a state-level issue, the recent
election provides opportunities for policy change at the federal level. The Biden administration is
supporting the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 that expressly calls attention to the issue of the underemployment
of immigrants and refugees, proposing that the Department of Labor study its causes and public and
private resources that can be devoted to it.33
And finally, the authors would recommend that the re-established White House Task Force on New
Americans could make the issue of brain waste among high-skilled immigrants a focus of its activities—as
the task force’s predecessor did under President Barack Obama.34
While credential recognition and underutilization have
traditionally been a state-level issue, the recent election provides
opportunities for policy change at the federal level.
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 17LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
Appendix. Additional Tables
TABLE A-1
Number and Share of College-Educated Workers, by Nativity, Job Skill Level, and Race/Ethnicity, 2019
College-Educated Employed in Employed in Underemployed
Workers High-Skilled Jobs Middle-Skilled Jobs (i.e., employed in low-
skilled jobs or unemployed)
Immigrants 9,639,000 6,104,000 1,543,000 1,992,000
Latino 1,856,000 932,000 331,000 593,000
Black 933,000 475,000 218,000 241,000
AAPI 4,496,000 3,077,000 682,000 738,000
Amer. Indian/
Other Races 63,000 37,000 8,000 18,000
White 2,291,000 1,584,000 305,000 402,000
Share of the total
Latino 19% 15% 21% 30%
Black 10% 8% 14% 12%
AAPI 47% 50% 44% 37%
Amer. Indian/
Other Races 1% 1% 1% 1%
White 24% 26% 20% 20%
U.S. Born 45,466,000 30,942,000 7,338,000 7,186,000
Latino 3,140,000 1,957,000 574,000 609,000
Black 4,191,000 2,518,000 759,000 914,000
AAPI 1,746,000 1,204,000 283,000 259,000
Amer. Indian/
Other Races 406,000 254,000 68,000 84,000
White 35,983,000 25,010,000 5,654,000 5,319,000
Share of the total
Latino 7% 6% 8% 8%
Black 9% 8% 10% 13%
AAPI 4% 4% 4% 4%
Amer. Indian/
Other Races 1% 1% 1% 1%
White 79% 81% 77% 74%
Note: Latinos can be of any race. The other racial groups refer to non-Latinos. Black refers to non-Latino persons who reported their
race as “Black alone” or “Black in combination with other race.” Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) refers to non-Latino persons
who reported their race as “AAPI alone” or “AAPI in combination with other race,” except Black. American Indian/other races include
non-Latino people who reported their race as “American Indian alone,” “American Indian and White,” or unspecified multiracial. The
remainder group (White) refers to non-Latino persons who reported their race as “White.”
Source: Migration Policy Institute (MPI) tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey (ACS).
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 18LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
TABLE A-2
Number and Share of Immigrant College-Educated Immigrant Workers, by Job Skill Level and English
Proficiency, 2019
Immigrant Employed in Employed in Underemployed
College-Educated High-Skilled Jobs Middle-Skilled Jobs (i.e., employed in
Workers low-skilled jobs or
unemployed)
Estimate 9,639,000 6,104,000 1,543,000 1,992,000
Speak English only 2,039,000 1,417,000 309,000 313,000
Speak English “very well” 5,559,000 3,804,000 871,000 885,000
Speak English “well” 1,484,000 724,000 271,000 489,000
Speak English “not well”
or “not at all” 558,000 160,000 93,000 305,000
Share of the total
Speak English only 21% 23% 20% 16%
Speak English “very well” 58% 62% 56% 44%
Speak English “well” 15% 12% 18% 25%
Speak English “not well”
or “not at all” 6% 3% 6% 15%
Notes: The ACS includes a question asking respondents to self-report their spoken English proficiency as “not at all,” “not well,” “well,”
“very well,” or “English only.” In this report, persons who reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” are defined as persons with
very low levels of English proficiency. Persons who speak only English or who reported speaking English “very well” are considered fully
proficient in English.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 ACS.
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 19LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE: THE PERSISTENCE OF BRAIN WASTE AMONG COLLEGE-EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
Endnotes
1 Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix, and James D. Bachmeier, Untapped Talent: The Costs of Brain Waste among Highly Skilled Immigrants in
the United States (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2016).
2 Burning Glass Technologies and Strada Institute for the Future of Work, The Permanent Detour: Underemployment’s Long-Term
Effects on the Careers of College Grads (Boston, MA: Burning Glass Technologies, 2018).
3 Sandra Leigh Johnson, New Estimates Show U.S. Population Growth Continues to Slow (Washington DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2019).
4 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), “Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic on Job Openings and Labor Turnover Data for
March 2021,” Table 3a. Job Openings by Sector and Region (numbers in thousands), accessed May 20, 2021.
5 To assign job skill level to occupations, Migration Policy Institute (MPI) researchers used the Occupational Information Network
(O*NET) database of occupational profiles that describes day-to-day work tasks and activities, tools and technologies, and
qualifications and skills of the typical worker. The O*NET database is updated regularly from surveys of workers, occupational
experts, and occupational analysts. Its development is supported by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training
Administration. Further detail on the O*NET database can be found at O*NET, ”About O*NET,” last updated May 25, 2021.
6 For MPI’s methodology for assigning legal status to noncitizens, see MPI, “MPI Methodology for Assigning Legal Status to
Noncitizen Respondents in U.S. Census Bureau Survey Data,” accessed May 25, 2021..
7 The “green-card holder” group excludes immigrants who arrived as humanitarian migrants and have shifted to lawful permanent
resident (LPR) status. This latter group is classified as “humanitarian migrants.”
8 MPI researchers define humanitarian migrants as those who arrived in the United States as resettled refugees, certain asylees,
special immigrant visa holders, and Cuban and Haitian entrants. Because the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey
(ACS) does not ask respondents about their legal or immigration status or visa at the time of arrival in the United States, MPI
researchers developed a proxy estimate of humanitarian migrants based on foreign-born respondents’ countries of birth and
year of immigration in the United States (in some cases, additional information such as ancestry or language was also used). This
estimate is a conservative one. In the case of a few countries that send large numbers of nonhumanitarian immigrants as well as
humanitarian migrants (for instance, asylum seekers from the People’s Republic of China), it is impossible to distinguish between
the two groups based on the information collected by ACS. For this reason, arrivals from these countries were not included in the
“humanitarian migrant” estimate total.
9 Neeta P. Fogg and Paul E. Harrington, Labor Market Underutilization Problems among College-Educated Immigrants in the United
States (Philadelphia: Center for Labor Markets and Policy, Drexel University, 2013); Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), International Migration Outlook 2020 (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2020).
10 It should be noted that other, more expansive definitions of underemployment are found in the workforce and employment
literature. They include workers who are working part-time involuntarily, those working more than one job, and workers
who believe that their education or work experience is not being fully utilized. See David Bell and David Blanchflower,
“Underemployment in the US and Europe,” working paper 24927, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, August
2018; Binyamin Appelbaum and Damon Winter, “One Job Is Better Than Two,” The New York Times, September 1, 2019; BLS, “Table
A-15. Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization,” accessed March 15, 2021.
11 Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix, Tapping the Talents of Highly Skilled Immigrants in the United States: Takeaways from Experts
Summit (Washington, DC: MPI, 2018); Amanda Bergson-Shilcock and James Witte, Steps to Success: Integrating Immigrant
Professionals in the U.S. (New York: World Education Services, 2015); OECD, International Migration Outlook 2020.
12 This analysis employs three sets of logistic regression models. One explores the relationship between college graduates’
underemployment, nativity, and place of education while controlling for the effects of race and ethnicity; English proficiency; level
of education; having a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degree; state of residence; and several demographic
variables (i.e., gender, age, school enrollment, and presence of children under age 5). A second model tests the relationship
between underemployment and race and ethnicity of U.S.-born college graduates, while controlling for workers’ level of education,
having a STEM degree, state of residence, and the demographic variables. A third model tests the relationship between
underemployment of immigrant college-educated workers and their race and ethnicity, English proficiency, and age at arrival while
controlling for workers’ level of education, having a STEM degree, state of residence, and demographic variables. Regression
results are available upon request.
13 Margie McHugh and Madeleine Morawski, Unlocking Skills: Successful Initiatives for Integrating Foreign-Trained Immigrant
Professionals (Washington, DC: MPI, 2017).
14 Jhacova Williams and Valerie Wilson, Black Workers Endure Persistent Racial Disparities in Employment Outcomes (Washington, DC:
Economic Policy Institute, 2019).
15 The ACS includes a question asking respondents to self-report their spoken English proficiency as “not at all,” “not well,” “well,” “very
well,” or “English only.” In this report, persons who reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” are defined as persons with
very low levels of English proficiency. Persons who speak only English or who reported speaking English “very well” are considered
fully proficient in English.
16 OECD, International Migration Outlook 2020.
17 Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix, and José Ramón Fernández-Peña, The Integration of Immigrant Health Professionals: Looking beyond
the COVID-19 Crisis (Washington, DC: MPI, 2021).
MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 20You can also read
